Thursday, October 24, 2013

Excavations at Abusir Archaeological Cemetery at Giza have revealed the tomb of Shepseskaf ‘ankh, Head of the Physicians of Upper and Lower Egypt who dates to the Fifth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom of Egypt. [Note: Fifth Dynasty dates approximately 2465 BCE - 2323 BCE].

The physician's final resting place is "huge" for its time, vice head of the Ancient Egyptian Sector Ali ALasfar described. The limestone tomb is approximately 69 by 45 feet long and 13 feet high.

A large false door inside the chapel where the tomb was found carries the names and titles of the owner. "Priest of Khnum" and "Priest of Magic," in addition to other titles are written on the eastern part of the tomb and show how the deceased physician was one of the most important royal physicians in Ancient Egypt.

This is the third tomb belonging to a physician to be discovered in Abusir Cemetery.

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Next up, Faux News reveals that Shepseskaf'ankh was burned at the stake, beheaded, and then quartered and drawn for practicing "magic" and "bowing down before false idols" instead of following the tenets of the Bible according to Michelle Bachmann. Yes, she was ALIVE back then, bwwwwaaaahhhhh! Pay no attention to the fact that so-called christianity, a blasphemous take on the teachings of Jesus Christ, did not come into existence until more than 2,300 years later.

Monday, October 21, 2013

A plea by Assyrian King Tukulti-Ninurta I made over 3,200 years ago, when this inscribed gold tablet was buried in the foundations of a temple dedicated to "a fertility goddess." I don't know why the article didn't identify her. At that time, in Assyria, it was probably a temple to Ishtar. I wonder what She thinks about this? I wonder what King Tukulti-Ninurta I (may he rest in peace) thinks about this?
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A Holocaust survivor's family urged New York's highest court Tuesday to let them keep an ancient gold tablet that their late father somehow obtained in Germany after World War II. Attorney Steven Schlesinger argued that the estate of Riven Flamenbaum has a legal claim, whether the native of Poland bought the relic from a Russian soldier or simply took it to compensate for losing his family at Auschwitz, the concentration camp where he spent several years.

The golden tablet from King Tukulti-Ninurta I's temple to the fertility goddess. Maybe worth $10 million cash at auction, but priceless, in more ways than one.

"Under the Soviet rules at the time, there was permission t pillage and plunder," Schlesinger said. "My client could have taken it in retribution." The tablet was in the collection of the Vorderasiatisches Museum, a branch of the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, before the war. The family argued that the museum's failure to reclaim the tablet for 60 years was an unreasonable delay, undercutting its claim. Schlesinger said Flamenbaum had been told by Christie's in 1954 that the small tablet was a fake and kept it at home. It's now in a safety deposit box on Long Island. Museum attorney Raymond Dowd said the absence of the 3,200-year-old relic was quickly noted by the museum, later reported by scholars and widely known. "There's no such thing as a right of pillage," Dowd said. "Reparation has nothing to do with this case." Who gets it is up to New York's Court of Appeals, where the seven judges grilled both lawyers Tuesday. A ruling is expected next month. The 9.5-gram tablet was excavated a century ago by German archaeologists from the Ishtar Temple in what is now northern Iraq. It went on display in Berlin in 1934, was put in storage as the war began and later disappeared. "It could fit in the palm of your hand," said Hannah Flamenbaum. "We played with it as children." Her father met her mother, another Holocaust survivor, at a relocation camp after the war. By his accounts he traded cigarettes or a salami for it. The couple came to the U.S., where her father went to work for a Manhattan liquor store and later bought the store, settling in Brooklyn, raising three children and later moving to Long Island, she said. "He never tried to sell it. ... This was sort of the legacy of his suffering in the camps," she said. "The thought was if we're allowed to retain it, put it on display in one of the museums, whether down here in Battery Park City in Manhattan or even in Israel. Use it as a way to talk about the Holocaust ... and my parents' story."

According to court documents, the tablet dates to 1243 to 1207 B.C., the reign of King Tukulti-Ninurta I of Assyria. Placed in the foundation of the temple of a fertility goddess, its 21 lines call on those who find the temple to honor the king's name. The tablet was excavated by German archaeologists from about 1908 to 1914 in what was then the Ottoman Empire, with Germany giving half the found antiquities to Istanbul, Raymond Dowd, the museum's lawyer, said. The modern state of Iraq has declined to claim it, he said. In 1945, the Berlin museum's premises were overrun, with many items taken by Russia, others by German troops and some pilfered by people who took shelter in the museum, Dowd said. The museum director was not in a position to say who took it, only that it disappeared. One recent estimate put its value at $10 million, Schlesinger said. Lower courts in New York were split on the decision, leading to the latest appeal.

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I'm one of the founders of Goddesschess, which went online May 6, 1999. I earned an under-graduate degree in history and economics going to college part-time nights, weekends and summer school while working full-time, and went on to earn a post-graduate degree (J.D.) I love the challenge of research, and spend my spare time reading and writing about my favorite subjects, travelling and working in my gardens. My family and my friends are most important in my life. For the second half of my life, I'm focusing on "doable" things to help local chess initiatives, starting in my own home town. And I'm experiencing a sort of personal "Renaissance" that is leaving me rather breathless...